For Christine Liu, one of the joys of studying abroad was getting up close and personal with a tuna in a Tokyo fish market.

Stretching the bounds of business

International experience and a new nonprofit major expand horizons for Carlson School students

By Deane Morrison

It may not affect Minnesota's balance of trade, but the U's
Carlson School of Management is about to double exports of its most
valuable commodity: undergraduates. Currently, about 46 percent of
Carlson School undergrads study abroad, but a new requirement for
an international experience will send nearly all of them to the far
corners of the world in pursuit of a four-year degree. On top of
that, they'll have one more choice of major: public/nonprofit
management, offered in conjunction with the U's Humphrey Institute
of Public Affairs. Brought about through the diligence of students,
the nonprofit major fills a need for expertise in a sector that
now, according to news reports, employs 10 percent of Minnesotans.
The two innovations are bound to raise the profile of the Carlson
School, already one of the top 20 public business schools as ranked
by U.S. News & World Report.

Students without borders

It's not hard to find globetrotting students who rave about their
experiences. Take Mark McCullough, an international business major
who waltzed over to the Vienna School of Economics and Business
Administration for a spring semester. "I love being pulled out of
the bubble in which I live and forced to view my own culture from
the outside," he says. "During my semester in Vienna, I learned a
lot about the ways in which the new laws and regulations of the
European Union affect the daily lives of EU nationals. "[This]
helped further my interest in the law and inspired me to attend law
school after finishing my undergraduate work. I feel that I now
have a good command of the German language, and my skills have
helped me obtain an internship for this coming summer." By
interning abroad, students immerse themselves in the business and
culture of another country and get a taste of what it takes to
compete in the global economy. That sits well with Michael Houston,
the Carlson School's associate dean of international programs. "I
think recruiters are looking for individuals with the mindset that
motivates them to want to be part of different cultures and who
understand how to make that happen," he says. "Some students may
say, 'I don't need international experience. I want to take over
mom and pop's furniture store.' My response is: 'What if IKEA moves
in next door?' If you have an understanding of how the global
economy works, then you are better able to deal with foreign
competition even if you never again set foot outside the state."

"Some students may say, 'I don't need
international experience. I want to take over mom and pop's
furniture store.' My response is: 'What if IKEA moves in next
door?'"

For senior Christine Liu, born in China and raised in the United
States, a semester at the Hong Kong University of Science and
Technology opened up a world of self-discovery. "Minnesota is for
the most part a rather homogeneous place," she notes. "By going to
Hong Kong, I realized the importance of diversity. Over there, I
interacted with people from my own background and from Europe.
"Also, it taught me how to deal with ambiguity. I was just thrown
into things over there--I didn't know about public transportation,
how to get to classes, or anything. We all had to deal with
everything ourselves for four months. But I want to do consulting
after graduation, and a big part of it is dealing with ambiguity.
In consulting, we often don't know the business [we're helping]."
The Carlson School is gearing up to expand its already numerous and
varied offerings for both undergrads and graduate students who want
to study or work abroad. The school is working on the nuts and
bolts of the new requirement, including the question of whether it
will apply to foreign students, according to Anne D'Angelo King,
assistant dean of international programs. "Our goal is a menu of
options to meet the needs of a variety of students," she says. "We
have students from small towns, ones who've traveled abroad, and
others who have worked with immigrant communities. The Carlson
School already has and is meeting a global mission. This
[requirement] solidifies it." "What you want in a great university
is one that is bold, visionary, and creative," says Carlson School
dean Alison Davis-Blake, who spent eighth grade at a
French-speaking school in Belgium "I hope that in 10 years, high
schools will see Carlson as a place where we prepare global
citizens."

Doing well by doing good

He didn't know it at the time, but Brian Peterson was creating a
nonprofit organization while still a Carlson School undergrad. He
and three other students founded Students Today Leaders Forever
(STLF) as a student group; today, it's a nonprofit youth service
organization with 13 chapters in the Midwest. Every spring break,
STLF sponsors the
Pay It Forward tour, which takes students to perform service
projects around the country. But as a nonprofit, it operates by
different rules than the businesses that most Carlson School
students study. "Here we were developing a nonprofit and didn't
know about how to do it," Peterson recalls. "Nonprofits have
different accounting, fund-raising--a different way of doing
business. "We saw the value of nonprofit leaders having a business
education as well as nonprofit-specific skills. For the University
to take a corrective step to make that happen is encouraging."
Peterson and fellow student Eric Larsen got the ball rolling by
sitting down with Bob Ruekert, associate dean for undergraduate
programs, and asking what an official nonprofit major would look
like. They soon saw that the best course was a joint program with
the Humphrey Institute, which teaches nonprofit-related topics such
as how the philanthropy system works. After meeting with more than
two dozen faculty from both schools and receiving "a ton of support
and feedback," the students put together a formal proposal, and the
University's Board of Regents approved the major in July. Now
working as co-director of STLF, Peterson is gratified to see some
of his friends who are still students signing up for the nonprofit
major and getting enthused about it. But he'll never forget the
thrill of watching the academic birth process. "It was really
exciting that faculty and administrators would listen to students'
ideas and develop them into a living, breathing program," he says.
Nonprofit majors will have a capstone project in which they help
local nonprofit organizations, says Ruekert. "In this case, doing
good is a byproduct of learning," he says. "Companies know that
doing good is more than writing checks. The payoffs are greater
through direct involvement. We're training leaders who know how to
become directly engaged in meeting community needs."